


Replacement

by 0phidian



Series: Late Night Thoughts [3]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: (Temporary) Hurt No Comfort, Cliffhanger, Dark Creativity | Remus "The Duke" Sanders Angst, Gen, Mild (?) Angst, Rated T for mild gore (human eyes and teeth are mentioned) and swearing, Two other characters are mentioned but I’m not going to spoil that, just tread carefully
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-19
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:55:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25371223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/0phidian/pseuds/0phidian
Summary: Remus sighed dramatically, pulling himself over the back of the couch and into a sitting position. Turning to the sock puppet that he always talked to when nobody was around, which was for some reason becoming far more of a usual occurrence these days, he continued, “Deceit could come back at any moment, y’know! It’s not like he pulled a Virgil or anything.” Saying the name felt a bit off, but Remus avoided taking note of that.
Relationships: n/a
Series: Late Night Thoughts [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1834642
Comments: 1
Kudos: 24





	Replacement

“So then I said, that’s _bullshit!_ Then I tried to just appear over there and give everyone a piece of my mind—” Remus held up a piece of the brain of the rat he’d dissected earlier that day to illustrate his point. “—but then I couldn’t actually _do_ that! Dunno, maybe it was Double Dee? He’s always been so methodical about things. Maybe I was ruining his acceptance schemes or whatever. Speaking of whom…”

Remus looked around the commons, draped across the back of a sofa. Well, the clock wasn’t going to help him at all! He couldn’t read upside down on command, and besides, he enjoyed not knowing exactly what time it was. Deceit always tried to fix their clock, but Remus always managed to change the arms back to two rapidly spinning octopus tentacles. And Virgil would—

Nah. Remus wasn’t going to think of _that_ today, thank you very much. That was practically a lost cause by now.

Deciding to change the topic of the conversation he’d been holding with himself, Remus continued staring at the clock as if it would actually tell him what time it was. Well, as far as he knew, it wasn’t daytime. But that was about it.

“Hey! Snakespeare! Aren’t you gonna change the clock back again?” Remus called, unused to the lack of company over in the Subconscious. The one apparent disadvantage of their clock was that, well, at that moment, he couldn’t tell how long Deceit had been gone for.

“Oh, well,” Remus sighed dramatically, pulling himself over the back of the couch and into a sitting position. Turning to the sock puppet that he always talked to when nobody was around, which was for some reason becoming far more of a usual occurrence these days, he continued, “Deceit could come back at any moment, y’know! It’s not like he pulled a Virgil or anything.” Saying the name felt a bit off, but Remus avoided taking note of that. “We just have to wait a bit more. A little spontaneity never hurt anyone! Don’t look so surprised, it’s not like I’ve never picked up a dictionary. I wreck all of them, but that isn’t the point.” In reality, the puppet’s expression hadn’t changed, save for one of the human eyes hot-glued to it beginning to fall down. “Drat. Maybe hot glue wasn’t the best idea.” The eye began to squirm and shake until it burst, a replacement growing out from its remains with a satisfying _pop_ sound.

“There we go!” Remus grinned. The face was far more lopsided than it was before, but was that really a bad thing? His maniacal grin started to falter. Was the _replacement_ really a bad thing? Well, if one was speaking literally, the replacement eye wasn’t a bad thing, per se, Remus thought, glancing at the pile of human eyes and teeth in the corner of the room.

Just highly inconvenient.

“Which isn’t a _bad_ thing!” Remus practically yelled to make up for the silence. “Well, silence isn’t a bad thing either! It’s great for building tension, as far as I know. Yes, both kinds of tension. Don’t go all _clean minded_ on me. That’s not what we do around here.” 

His train of thought was still lingering on “Replacement: Literal Meaning or Poetic Justice?” station.

Remus groaned. He hadn’t _planned_ to feel emotions today! And those were things that he usually didn’t mind nor plan. 

“You know what?” Remus determinedly asked as if the puppet was going to respond. “I’m just going to sit here and wait. It’s not that hard to just repress! Thomathy does that all the time.”

And he actually succeeded!

...

For around two seconds.

Yanking the grimy sock puppet off of his hand (he was going to have to remember to give it back to Deceit later), Remus ran towards the door to the Imagination. If he wasn’t going to be allowed to be in the Light Side again, then he was just going to take the long way there!

Assuming that _that_ way wasn’t blocked as well.

Remus was greeted with the “usual” sight of dissection tables, tools spread around the floor, small animals crawling around with their organs falling out of their eye sockets, and golden strings.

Golden strings? What the hell were those doing on his side of the Imagination? Couldn’t Roman keep his business to himself for o—

“Agh!” Whatever the string was and wherever it came from, it didn’t exactly seem to like Remus so much, because it had just morphed into a yellow snake and had managed to tackle him to the ground. Not the best way to start his journey.

At least now he knew where the string had come from. 

But what the hell was Deceit doing in the Imagination? Did that mean that his little discussion with the others was finished already? Ugggghhhhhh. He was never filled in on these kinds of things.

The snake had begun to slither away towards the other end of the Imagination— the fact that Deceit hadn’t returned to the Subconscious yet but was just hanging around the Imagination put a bitter feeling into Remus’ gut, and this time the feeling wasn’t even enjoyable.

He began to sprint after the snake, a morning star materializing in his hands. How long had it been since he’d gone for a run like this? Cheesy feelings like the wind on his face and the feeling of breathlessness (good breathlessness!) were feelings that he hadn’t felt in a long time. It was good to have them ba—

“Are you kidding me!?” Remus pulled away from the golden web that had smacked him in the face. Looking around, he realized that he wasn’t even on his side of the Imagination anymore, but it didn’t look much like his brother’s, either.

The area was covered in dark shadows, save for the multicolored (but mostly yellow), shimmering strings intertwined in a complicated web. 

And in the center of it all was Deceit.

“Poetic justice, much?” Remus muttered, speaking far more loudly afterwards. “Deceit!? What are you doing in— _hey!_ ”

“ **You do not want to be in here right now,** ” said a voice from behind him. Somebody was pulling his arm and dragging him back the way he came from, but why would any—

_Virgil?_

After the initial shock of _whoa, it’s the emo! What the hell’s he doing near the Subconscious? Didn’t he want to leave or something?_ wore off, he looked back for half a second before starting to run as well. He could’ve sworn that Deceit flinched at the sound of his name, but…

He shook his head. No, he must’ve imagined it. 

Remus groaned inwardly, what with all the emotions and surprises that today had brought.

This was going to be a long night.

**Author's Note:**

> These are becoming progressively longer-


End file.
